Highland Obsession (9 page)

Overcome by the hopelessness of her situation, she’d collapsed on the bed and wept. For the loss of Cam, of her reputation, of the carefree life she’d lived before tonight. For her hopes of a future with Alan.

Staring at the door, she realized she hadn’t heard the smooth sound of the bolt sliding into place, nor had she heard the solid click as it was locked. Knowing Cam, it wasn’t likely that he’d neglected to bar her in, but then again he could be even deeper in his cups by now. She wouldn’t be surprised if he’d gone directly from her to his whisky. He’d looked like a man who could use another drink.

But if he was drunk, why hadn’t he come in and ravished her? Given his earlier behavior, that was what she’d expected. The man made no sense at all.

She continued staring at the door, every nerve in her body on edge, waiting for the telltale sound of him locking her in again. But there was only silence.

Could it be possible? Could she just walk out of here? Cam would have guards posted at the entrance gates and in the guardhouses speckled over the grounds, but they wouldn’t hinder her. She’d grown up at Camdonn Castle. She knew a better way out.

She thrust the covers aside and swung her legs over the edge of the bed. Gooseflesh rose across her skin, and she shuddered. Though she’d be wet and chilled through by the end of this night, she might as well try to keep covered.

She stood, padded over the thick carpet to Cam’s wardrobe, and opened the door. The hinges creaked loudly, and she stood still for a long moment, waiting. When nobody stormed in wondering at the noise, she turned her attention to the piles of clean, crisply folded shirts, stockings, and drawers. Surely he possessed more clothing than all the men of the glen combined.

She grabbed the top shirt and pulled it on, faltering as she smelled Cam on it—musky and male, with a hint of sandalwood spice. Her body heated instantly in reaction. Her flesh had been too well trained, but she was grimly determined to untrain it. Rolling the sleeves up to her wrists, she decided it was useless to try a pair of breeches or trews. Stockings were also out of the question. She’d never be able to keep them on. Cam’s shirt covered her to her shins, and it, along with the plaid, would have to do until she arrived at Alan’s cottage. Her new home, if her husband would still have her.

Sorcha glanced at the door. She should run. If there was any possibility of escaping from Cam, she must take it.

It was not regret that tightened her chest. Surely it was something else. Anger. Yes, it was certainly anger. Not fear of never seeing Cam again. Not pity for how her escape would make him feel. Certainly not that. The wretched man didn’t deserve her pity.

Anger was the only emotion she could encourage, the only feeling she could accept with a clear conscience.

Pressing her lips together, Sorcha walked to the bed to wrap the plaid around her body. She found a simple iron pin in a chest beside the wardrobe, and she used it to attach the edges of the plaid at her chest. Then she walked to the door leading to the hallway. It glided open without a sound.

She glanced both ways. The passageway was dark, lit only by the dim candlelight cast from Cam’s room behind her. All was quiet. By this hour, everyone had gone to bed save the guards on overnight duty. Yet dawn couldn’t be far away. Soon the castle would be abustle with servants going about their morning chores.

Closing the door behind her, Sorcha scuttled down the hall on tiptoe. Except for the creak of a floorboard that nearly made her leap out of her skin, she moved silently on bare feet.

Once down the stairs, she rounded the corner to enter the entry hall. As quietly as possible, she drew the bolt on the front door and let herself out into the chill of predawn.

Now it would be dangerous. She cast a glance at the barracks, thankfully still dark. Yet some of the men were awake, keeping watch over the grounds. She had to be as silent and careful as a wraith to prevent them from seeing or hearing her. The moonlight was waning, but the feel of dawn was in the air, and the earliest hint of a morning glow softened the nighttime sky.

She flattened her body against the stone wall and inched around the building. A crunch of footsteps on gravel sounded nearby, and she froze.

Quickly, she wedged herself behind an outcropping and prayed. Half her body hung out in plain view, but she was in shadow and covered by the dark reds and blacks of the plaid. The man would not see her unless he turned. Sorcha held her breath as he crossed the courtyard and disappeared into the barracks.

She moved faster now. Keeping her back pressed against the wall, she shuffled around the corner, down the long end of the building, and around the back. A guardhouse stood at the end of the spit, but if she was lucky, she’d be fast enough and they’d miss her.

She sprinted across the grass, ducking low as she reached the two bushes she always used to mark the entrance to the path down the cliff. Here the incline to the water was not quite vertical, and rock formations in the face of the wall created natural steps. They were too dangerous and too steep for most to bother with, but Sorcha had clambered down them often as a lass. A tiny cave stood at the waterline—no more than a deep impression in the earth—where she’d gone to escape the constant tension she felt living on the grounds of a loyalist lord in a family and community that covertly sided with the Jacobites.

Tonight the steps were covered in mud and slippery with moss. Clearly it had been a long time since anyone had made use of this method of climbing down to the water. She clutched at small outcrop-pings as she nudged her body downward, grasping for the rocks with her toes. Her foot landed on a sharp edge, and she yelped as it jabbed into the most tender part of her arch.

“Did you hear that?”

The voice had come from the guardhouse, not ten yards away. Scrabbling for purchase, Sorcha ducked beneath the lip of the cliff and pressed her body against the earth, hanging on with her toes and fingers and gritting her teeth against the tingling pain in her foot.

“Anyone out here?”

“Likely just an animal, Will.”

The second voice sounded sleepy, as if Will’s sudden jump to attention had awakened its owner.

“Sounded like a person to me,” Will groused.

Again, Sorcha heard footsteps. This time the steps were soft—the person was walking over wet, springy grass. It sounded like only one pair of feet—probably Will come to investigate the noise.

He stopped just above her. Sorcha knew if she looked up and around the ledge she’d be able to see his boots. But she didn’t dare move. Her lower lip trembled, and she bit down hard on it.

“Sounded like a woman.” Will’s voice rang clear just overhead.

Sorcha hoped beyond hope that he hadn’t heard about his master abducting the newly wed Sorcha Stewart.

The second man still sounded far away. “P’raps a rat,” he said on a yawn.

“Huh. Ain’t never heard the sound of a rat compared to the sound of a woman before.” Light descended around her as Will crouched overhead, lowering his lamp to peer over the edge of the cliff. Sorcha held her breath.

“Aye, Will.” The other man gave a mocking laugh. “’Tis all that squeaking they do when ye bed them. You just wouldn’t know.”

Will didn’t answer, but the light disappeared and his footsteps sounded again, this time receding back toward the guardhouse.

Sorcha released a shaky breath. Carefully, she continued making her way down, facing the cliff. The steps seemed to have changed since she’d last come down this way. Now they felt more dangerous than they had before. Perhaps it was because of the darkness, though she’d descended these steps at night on occasion. Most likely it was just that she’d simply become more cautious. She felt much older now than the last time she’d descended to the loch, although not even a year had passed.

Finally, she reached the cave that had once served as her secret place. She stepped into it, though she didn’t really have the time. A twig had caught a tiny piece of linen at the level of her waist. Sorcha took it and rubbed it back and forth between her fingers, remembering her last visit here. The new earl had just arrived from England and the staff had lined up to wait for him. Sorcha had escaped to her secret spot and was caught up in her daydreams when the housekeeper had called for her. She’d scrambled out and had met the earl—Cam—breathing heavily with exertion and with her skirt torn. He had noticed, too. His eyes had raked over her, pausing when they reached the tear, and then he’d met her gaze for a brief, electric moment before moving on. She’d felt flushed all the way to her toes for hours afterward.

It was the beginning of the end. A month after that, he’d kissed her in an alcove, and by March, she’d become Cam’s eager bedmate. She couldn’t steal away from her father’s watchful eyes often, but when they came together, she and Cam had made every moment count.

Sighing, Sorcha turned toward the loch, dreading what must come next. She could skim along the edge of the bank for a time, but then she’d have to wade into the water and walk the short distance to shore. Though she’d been taught to ignore superstition, the water looked eerie, like an undulating blanket of velvet, and she sent up a quick prayer for the kelpie to be sound asleep in his nest.

She traveled along the water’s edge for as long as she could. Mud and reeds squished between her toes. She tied Cam’s shirttails in a cumbersome knot just below her breasts and hiked the plaid onto her shoulders. If she could keep the fabric dry, it might help to warm her later. The loch was cold as ice. If she wasn’t careful, she might freeze to death before arriving at her husband’s cottage.

Trying to convince herself that it was a better fate than dying as the Earl of Camdonn’s whore, she waded into the water. She gritted her teeth against the shock of it as she progressed down the slope and immersed herself to the waist. After the initial painful bite of cold, her skin numbed in all the places the water touched.

The rocks of the pebbled beach ahead glowed dimly in the dusky predawn light. Focusing on the shore, she tried to take long, smooth strides so she wouldn’t splash. A mixture of rocks and mud and slimy water weeds covered the ground, and she moved slowly to find her footing.

Finally, she emerged from the water. Frigid air collided with her body, and she shuddered violently. She brushed the wetness from her legs before untying Cam’s shirt and allowing it to drop down to her shins. The fabric clung to her damp skin. Clenching her teeth to keep them from chattering, she unfolded the plaid and draped it around her body.

She glanced back to Camdonn Castle. Word had not got out that she was gone. Everything was silent, the buildings still dark. A shadow moved near the guard gate, and she slipped behind a low, spindly alder for cover.

The difficult part of her escape was over. Now she merely had to walk the few miles along the shore until she reached Alan’s cottage.

Would Cam come after her once he discovered her missing?

Perhaps she should run.

 

Over an hour later, a glorious morning had arrived. The sun shone brightly, but frost still clung to the eaves, and the arrival of the sun hadn’t heated the earth.

Sorcha straggled down the path to the cottage. Her teeth chattered so hard she hoped they were rooted strongly enough in her mouth to withstand the battering.

Scratches and bruises covered her feet. Every cut burned, especially a rather bloody one on the bottom of her arch, and each time a rock nudged against one of the bruises on her soles she felt the deep, aching pain. She was grateful she hurt—it meant she would be all right. If her feet had gone numb, she’d have greater cause for worry.

Nobody came out to greet her, and she paused at the closed wooden door, now cocked haphazardly on its hinges. As of yesterday, this was her home, but she’d spent only a short amount of time here. It didn’t
feel
like home. Not like Camdonn Castle did.

Bracing herself with a deep breath, Sorcha pushed on the door, and it swung open crookedly.

The first person she saw was her father. His head snapped up from where he’d rested it on his arms at the table. He lunged to his feet. “Sorcha! Thank God.”

People seemed to emerge from the walls themselves. Her sister and brothers. Last of all, Alan, standing at the doorway to the bedroom, his eyes narrowed like blue arrow slits.

Uncomfortably aware she was dressed in naught but a damp, finely tailored man’s shirt and a rucked-up, dirty plaid, she straightened her spine and nodded at her father. “Da.”

Then she bravely met her husband’s gaze.

Alan had changed. The gentle, kind expressions of last night had hardened to stone.

“What happened, lass?” Her father strode toward her. She never thought to see so many emotions rage across his face. He’d seemed melancholy yesterday at her wedding, but today there was so much more. Anger, fright, annoyance, disgust, worry, concern. He stood before her and reached out to clasp her shoulders. He shook her lightly.

Sorcha licked her lips. “I escaped from Camdonn Castle.” When his facial expression didn’t change, she added, “By way of the loch.”

Everyone stood still, staring at her, expecting her to say more.

“Nothing happened,” she blurted. “The earl didn’t harm me.”

In a blink, Moira nudged Sorcha all the way inside and closed the door as best as it could be closed behind her. “Oh, Sorcha. You must be half dead with cold. Let me have a look at those poor feet, then.”

Her teeth chattering, Sorcha let her sister lead her to a chair beside the fire. Moira rattled off instructions for warm water and rags while her brothers fetched what she needed, and Sorcha thanked the Lord she hadn’t been asked to offer more details. Yet.

Someone draped a clean plaid over her shoulders, and she wondered whether her father or her husband had done it. By the time she collected enough strength to turn around, both men had faded into the room’s shadows, but James stood behind her. He curled his hand on her arm and bent down to her ear. “I’ll kill him for this, I swear it.”